


Strike That. Reverse It.

by louciferish



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Meetings, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Time Travel, Vicchan (Yuri!!! on Ice) Dies, yes despite the time travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 02:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16568237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: Yuuri was just a kid the first time he saw Victor in person, and he remembers it with startling, obsessive clarity. Victor remembers nothing. That’s exactly how Yuuri wanted it.It seemed like a good idea at the time - for the best, really - but now Victor’s here, in his parents’ home, and Yuuri’s not sure how to cope with the fact that their “first” meeting at the Sochi Grand Prix was, in fact, the fifth.





	Strike That. Reverse It.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm happy to finally let my piece for Litmag Issue 2 out into the world. This was the first zine I was ever accepted to and I had some very typical first-timer panic. "The Carousel of Time" was my original concept for the zine, but then I spun out wondering if it was too short and/or too weird. I went to a friend's house for a writing weekend and wound up spitting out the entire 3,500 word first draft of this in two days!
> 
> Reading over it last night, I think I've progressed some as a writer even just in the 4-5 months since I wrote this, which is pretty crazy. I did make some minor tweaks and edits to this version to update the style, but nothing substantial.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and thanks again to the admin team on Shall We Read for giving a relative newbie a shot at the time!

Victor still had rice flecking the corners of his mouth from his first meal in Hasetsu when he turned to Yuuri and tilted his head like a puzzled puppy. He brushed the soft silver bangs back from his face, then tapped the tip of one long finger against his chin.

“Yuuri,” he said, drawing out the vowel. “If you were such a fan that you memorized my programs, and we competed together all these years, then how is it that we never met before?”

Yuuri clenched his hands on his knees and averted his eyes. What could he say? No matter what, Victor would think Yuuri had avoided him. He had, but the full truth was far more complicated than that.

In reality, when Victor met Yuuri at the Grand Prix Final, it was for the fifth time. Yuuri could recall every meeting with startling, obsessive clarity. Victor, of course, remembered nothing. That was exactly how Yuuri wanted it.

He turned back to Victor, preparing an excuse, but found his idol already fast asleep, sprawled across the top of the table. Yuuri rose from the floor and bent to retrieve Victor’s used dishes for cleaning. He had a reprieve from explaining, for now.

-

The first time, Yuuri was twelve, jittering his leg in the stands of an arena in Osaka as he tried to conceal his nerves from Yuuko’s parents. He’d been waiting for this day for weeks, ever since Yuuko’s birthday. She’d come to meet him at the rink and tackled him, squealing about her gift - tickets to the ice show in Osaka, and she could bring one friend, anyone she wanted. After that, it was only a matter of getting the Katsukis to grant their permission for Yuuri to go.

Yuuri clutched the plush poodle he’d brought against his chest. He’d used his own money to buy it, saving up anything he could earn. It was small, and their seats were so far away. Yuuko’s father had offered to throw the toy for him when the time came, but that only made Yuuri cling to it more tightly. He wanted it to come from him.

Finally, it was Victor’s turn to skate. The sixteen year-old was already the Junior World Champion, and now he had his eye on the senior Grand Prix. Yuuri’s mouth hung open as he watched the performance unfold below. He clamped his hands fast on the plushie’s little ears, tugging in excitement. When it was over, he was surprised to find he hadn’t ripped the toy apart. Incredible.

As Victor finished, flowers and toys flew through the air and bounced onto the ice, littering the edges of the rink. Yuuri stood with his toy and pulled his arm back far behind him. He waited, watching as Victor took his bows and waved to the audience. As he skated by where Yuuri stood, Yuuri flung the toy out as hard as he could, biting his lip as the little dog sailed through the air. He watched the arc of its landing and wished with all his might that it would come down, perfectly, right at Victor’s feet.

The little plush flew down, down, toward the boy on the ice, and then - boop! - landed right on Victor’s head. It bounced harmlessly off his forehead and tumbled to the ground. 

Victor raised a hand to feel his head, and Yuuri gasped. He felt his legs turn to stone. Oh no. Oh no. Victor was going to find out who threw it, and then he would _hate_ Yuuri. Tears sprung to the corners of his eyes. He should never have brought the toy at all. He shouldn’t have thrown it. In that moment, all he wanted was to be able to take it back.

The chatter of the announcers stopped short. The rink went dead silent. Yuuri looked over at Yuuko in alarm, only to find her frozen mid-jump, her arms still raised high above her head.

Yuuri blinked, and a flood of sound came rushing back into the arena. On the rink below, Victor was in the final spin of his program. Yuuri had just seen this skate, but here it was, happening again. His fingers dug into something soft, and he looked down to find the little toy poodle still clutched between his hands. As the music faded and Victor held his final pose, triumphant, Yuuri lowered himself back into his seat.

Yuuko leapt to her feet, waving her homemade banner high overhead. Her father tilted his head at Yuuri, puzzled by his lack of reaction. “This is your chance. Are you going to throw it, or did you want me to?”

“No,” Yuuri said, and pulled his legs up to curl around the toy in his lap. “I decided to keep it.”

Yuuko’s father looked at him askance, but said nothing else about it. When Victor left the rink, skating past their seats on a final pass, Yuuko’s squeals could have shattered glass, but Yuuri stayed in his seat. He couldn’t risk screwing up again.

At the station afterward, Yuuri could barely hold his head up long enough to board the train, and he fell asleep as soon as they reached their seats, curled into a ball against the window as Yuuko chattered away in his ear. He slept the entire ride home, hugging the plush poodle to his chest.

-

After the first time, Yuuri had to see if he could make it happen again. He stood outside the onsen and watched as Tanaka-san rode by on his bike, waving. Then, he closed his eyes, and wished with all his might to redo it.

He scurried back and crouched down to hide behind a bush. A moment later, Tanaka-san rode by again. This time, he didn’t see Yuuri, and he didn’t wave. 

Yuuri burst into the kitchen to tell his mama what happened. After he finished explaining everything in a jumble of words and feelings, she dried her hands and patted him on the head. “It sounds like a good dream,” she said. 

Yuuri bit his lip. It wasn’t a dream, and he knew it.

Yuuri played with his new power after that. He set watch alarms to see the time change. He redid embarrassments at school and dodged pranks from Mari in the halls of the onsen. He also learned the rules.

-

The second time Yuuri met Victor, he was fourteen and horrified by it. Victor at fourteen had already accumulated more gold medals than Yuuri had posters in his bedroom. In comparison, Yuuri’s first year in juniors has been nondescript. His only podium placing was a bronze at Nationals.

Yuuri was still a long way from skating on the same ice as his idol, but now at least he could be in the same room. Minako-sensei alone had brought him all the way out to Kobe for the ice show. Since the disaster two years ago, Yuuri had planned to avoid these events, but the tickets were quite expensive, and Minako-sensei wouldn’t let him say no.

“It was either Kobe or Osaka, nothing closer,” she said as she handed him the envelope with the tickets. “And Osaka sold out.” Yuuri was fine with that. Victor wasn’t performing in Osaka.

The show was flawless, and Victor was breathtaking. Their seats were nowhere near the ice, but seeing Victor, close-up and slow motion, projected onto so many screens at once throughout the arena? It was overwhelming. By the end of the performance, Yuuri felt the same giddy sickness he would get after binging a whole package of fruit drops when he was little.

The lights came up, and Minako stood, ushering Yuuri out with a hand between his shoulders. He tried to dig in his heels and stop before the merchandise booth. He didn’t have much money to buy anything, but he’d still hoped to get something small for Yuuko. 

But Minako shuttled him right past the booth, pushing him toward the exit doors against his will. The crowd parted ahead of Minako’s loud complaints, and there he was: Victor, seated at a plastic table right in the middle of the lobby. He had a fat black marker in one hand as he nodded and smiled up at a young girl.

Yuuri froze, but Minako forced a roll of paper into his hands and shoved him forward. “Go, quick,” she whispered in his ear, and then he was stumbling toward the table. He caught himself on the edge and looked up, only to find himself staring right into the blue eyes he knew so well from posters and magazines. Victors irises were flecked with gold and silver, a detail Yuuri had never noticed in the photos.

“Hello,” Victor said in English. His smile deserved a gold medal too. “Thank you for your support.”

“Thank you,” Yuuri whispered back.

Victor held his hand out, palm up, Yuuri almost reached out to take it. He aborted the touch, his hand spasming at his side, as he realized that Victor was expecting Yuuri to hand him something to autograph. Yuuri’s face was on fire as he handed over the paper Minako had given him, and watched in fascination as Victor scribbled out the strange characters that made up his name.

“I hope you’ll come see me again,” Victor said as he handed the poster back.

And Yuuri said, “You too.” 

His blood ran cold, then hot with embarrassment. 

The world blinked out of focus.

There he was: Victor, seated at a plastic table, with a marker in his hand, smiling up at a young girl.

Minako forced a roll of paper into his hands and shoved him forward. “Go, quick,” she whispered in his ear, but Yuuri turned around, pushing the poster back against her chest.

“Please, no, Minako-sensei. Go for me,” he begged. “Please.”

Minako raised her eyebrows, startled by his vehement plea, but she took the poster from him, then stepped up to the table herself.

Yuuri stepped back behind a potted plant to hide, just to make sure he wouldn’t do something like look at Victor funny and ruin the second chance as well.

-

 **Rule Number One:**

Yuuri could only redo one mistake each day. 

Being restricted to once a day was not a problem for him - one second chance was more than most people got. In the beginning, he regularly reset his morning when he was running late for school in order to get to class on time.

Then came the day when Nishigori “accidentally” spilled a bucket of mop water on him during cleaning time after class, and Yuuri was stuck walking home with soggy socks.

After that, he saved his redos. He stopped using the ability to avoid minor inconveniences like running late. If something worse happened later in the day, he knew he’d regret using his one chance on something minor.

-

The third time was an accident.

All week, Yuuri had felt like he was balancing on the blade of a single skate, ready to tumble at any moment. He wanted to blame the nerves on the general fact of his first Senior Worlds, but the fear went beyond his typical competition anxieties. For the first time, he would be competing against Victor.

His short program had been passable at best. He wasn’t anywhere near the podium, but he’d made the scoring cutoff, so he’d be going on to the free skate. After his scores came back, he raced back to the locker room to get changed so he could watch the rest of the groups. 

He dropped onto the locker room bench like a stone and picked at his laces. Celestino kept reminding him that getting to the free alone was a big achievement, but deep inside, Yuuri had yearned for more. He could be so much better than he was.

A familiar voice jerked him from his thoughts. “Katsuki of Japan, right? Do you know anywhere with good food nearby? I haven’t even gone on yet, and I’m already starving.”

Yuuri whipped around. There, centimeters from his back, was Victor Nikiforov in the flesh. And he was very much “in the flesh”- only half-dressed in his skating costume, pale skin and muscle on display from neck to waist.

The universe blinked, and Yuuri found himself sitting on the bench alone once more, his skates still securely tied to his feet.

This time, he tore at the laces, then ripped the skates off, shoved them in his bag, and grabbed his shoes. He ran out of the locker room.

Outside the door, he stopped to catch his breath and calm his heart rate, pulling his shoes on in the safety of the empty hallway. Behind him, he could hear that voice again, echoing off the metal lockers, “Hey, Cao Bin? Do you know anywhere with good food nearby?”

Yuuri bit his lip and dropped his head back, so it thumped against the wall. He may not have meant to do that, but it was fine. He wasn’t ready yet. He and Victor might be at the same competition, but they weren’t in nearly the same group. In Yuuri’s opinion, they weren’t on the same ice yet. He would wait.

-

**Rule Number Two:**

He could redo five minutes of his day, no more and no less.

After the first incident, Yuuri walked down to the store and used his pocket money to buy a watch. He never took it off. Adults joked about what a serious child he seemed to be. “Are you running late?” they teased him. “Do you have an important business meeting?”

The comments were embarrassing, but the watch was important to his experiments. He could turn back time, but by how much? He tried different tactics and varied the time of day, but each time, the watch confirmed it: five minutes. 

-

Yuuri was at the Olympics the fourth time he met Victor. _The Olympics_. He still wasn’t over it, even if he was only there because Japan happened to have more slots for the team than they had Olympics-worthy skaters.

And now he was in Russia, competing on the biggest stage in the world for an athlete. He searched through the other tables in the ballroom, seeking out Phichit’s distinctive laugh, and smiled to himself. It was good to have a friend along, too, even though they had to stay in separate housing for the week.

Once it sunk in that he was actually going to compete in the Olympics, he’d probably fall apart, but for now he was still high on the excitement of the opening ceremonies, only half listening as the other members of Team Japan chattered over him.

“Katsuki-san, are you coming too?” Yuuri jumped a little in his seat and looked over at the girl who spoke. He knew she was a skier, but couldn’t remember her name.

“Coming to what?”

“We’re going to go have a drink before things get serious,” she said, smiling. “Those of us who don’t compete tomorrow, at least. Coming?”

“Ah, no. Thank you,” Yuuri said. “I don’t drink at all until after the competition is over.” He could only hope that no one asked why. His fear of exposing his drunken antics to his countrymen outweighed his distaste for lying. 

The rest of the table stood to leave. Realizing that everyone else must be going without him, he winced. It was awkward to be the only one saying no to something like this, but nowhere near as painful as it would be to lose control in front of his teammates.

He stood up with the rest as they joined the stream of other athletes shuffling toward the exit. The doorway was quite crowded with other teams who seemed to have the same idea. Yuuri scanned the crowd, looking for familiar faces, but he was soon overwhelmed by the sound of so many languages being spoken at once.

Outside the door was a volunteer holding a basket. As they left, Yuuri saw many of the others stop there to grab some type of candy. A little sugar would be good to keep his energy up this week. It wasn’t enough to break his diet, right?

He swerved over to the volunteer on his way and reached out to grab a handful of candies from the basket. Instead, his fingers brushed skin. He looked up, and of course, _of course_ found himself confronted with the long, pale eyelashes of Victor Nikiforov.

“Wow,” Victor said, drawing out the O. “I didn’t know Japan was like that. I’m impressed.”

Yuuri frowned at Victor, puzzled by the comment, then looked back down where their fingers were still half-entwined in the basket. The foil candy wrappers dug into his skin with jagged little teeth. He watched as Victor plucked one free of the mess and held it up.

“I only need one for now,” he said, winking. “Take all you like.”

Yuuri could only stare at the round shape silhouetted against the foil square. _LOVE_ , it said.

His face caught fire. No. Absolutely not. He would not be meeting Victor over a basket of _condoms_.

The world blinked, and Yuuri was once again caught in the stream of athletes by the doors. When he spotted the volunteers with their baskets, he looked down at his feet, blushing.

He went back to his room alone, choosing to Skype with his parents and Vicchan while his roommates were out at the party.

-

 **Rule Number Three:**

Never use a redo in competition.

Five minutes might not seem like much time, but when Yuuri was panicking, it felt like eternity. Five minutes was also longer than any of his programs.

His first instinct was that it wasn’t fair to use his redos in competition. He wanted to stand on the podium by Victor someday, but he didn’t want to get there by cheating.

He stood by that principle all through juniors, but when he two-footed his triple axel at his first senior competition, he had to rethink his position. It was the biggest performance of his life so far. The world was watching, and he needed to prove he had something to show them. He needed to show Victor.

Yuuri skated to the boards after his short with his head hung low. The universe stuttered, and then Yuuri skated out to center rink to begin again. 

The muscles in his thighs were sore and trembling from having performed the program once, and now, knowing how far he could fall, his heart was racing even more wildly than it had on his first attempt. He tried to take a deep breath and found himself gasping, eyes watering before the music even started.

He fell on his first jump. He under-rotated both jumps in his combination. In the last seconds of the performance, he lost control of his camel spin, and his finishing position was his butt. It was humiliating. There was nothing he could do. 

-

Yuuri was pacing the hallway outside the rink with Celestino, waiting to be called. He’d done well in the short, better than he expected, but now the pressure was on: his first Grand Prix Final. His stomach churned, reminding him of the huge meal he’d celebrated with the night before. 

His phone suddenly began to chirp, and Mari’s image popped up on the screen: a shot he’d taken of her on their last Skype call, Vicchan licking her face. He thumbed to reject the call. She probably didn’t realize how close he was to skating.

The phone immediately rang again, and Yuuri’s mouth went dry. Something was wrong. He accepted the call and pressed the phone to his ear, just listening.

The words were a jumble, but he got the idea. Vicchan. _No_.

Hot tears were already welling up in his eyes, and his voice broke a little as he asked, “How long ago was it?”

“Just a little while ago,” Mari said. She sounded soft. “We had to hurry home to see you skate, but I thought you’d want to know. It was peaceful. He-”

“No, Mari-nee, you don’t understand. I need to know _exactly_ how long ago he was hit. How many minutes?” He heard the loud intake of breath that signaled his sister was taking a pull on a cigarette. Celestino was tapping his shoulder, but Yuuri shrugged him off. “How long?”

“I don’t know,” Mari said. “Thirty minutes?”

Yuuri closed his eyes. Thirty minutes was a lot more than five. He’d tried before, but he’d never managed to get back further. For Vicchan, he had to try again. He only needed to do it once. 

He hung up on Mari and checked the time. It was 11:34 in Sochi. He needed to redo thirty minutes - thirty-five to be safe.

He closed his eyes, held his breath, and thought, _redo_.

It felt as if the ground trembled beneath his feet.

He opened his eyes to see the familiar white walls of the hallway. Celestino was looking at him, his caterpillar eyebrows furrowed with obvious concern. Yuuri looked at his phone. 

It was 11:29.

His phone began to ring in his hand. On the screen was a picture of Mari. Vicchan was licking her face.

-

The disaster of his free skate, the confrontation with Yuri Plisetsky in the bathrooms, walking out to meet Celestino and knowing his coach could see his red, watery eyes: they were all things that Yuuri would have loved to redo.

That wasn’t an option, though. He had one chance for the day. He’d used it for Vicchan, and he’d failed. He was leaving Sochi again, but now he had a dead dog, he’d fallen apart on the ice, and everyone in the world knew what an utter disaster he was.

Yuuri touched his face for what must have been the tenth time since he walked out of the lockers. His glasses were still perched on his nose, but his vision was blurred. He stared out the window at a poodle perched in the arms of a strange woman and felt like he was moving through water, trying desperately to reach reality as the waves pushed him further away.

He didn’t even realize he was staring at _Victor_ until his idol turned, a blank look dissolving into a poster-perfect smile. “A commemorative photo?” He didn’t seem to recognize Yuuri at all.

Turning away from Victor and letting that moment go unchanged - their first meeting, and probably their last - was one of the _easiest_ things Yuuri did all day.

-

The choices Victor made after that were beyond Yuuri’s control. He couldn’t reverse the video that went viral. He couldn’t rewind on Victor deciding to be his coach. The insane events that followed Victor to Hasetsu like ducklings were things he could experience but couldn’t stop.

Victor was worming his way into every part of Yuuri’s life, inescapable. He was at the rink. He was at the ballet studio. He was there when Yuuri stumbled into the kitchen for tea in the morning, and he was in the onsen when Yuuri wanted to relax after a hard practice. His frequent, casual touch was water, dripping, wearing away at rock.

Months passed, and Yuuri rarely bothered to redo any of it.

Life was nothing but Victor and practice and Victor again. He prepared for the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship as he never had before, with a fierce commitment to his new jumps. As a kid, “making Victor proud” had always been a carrot Minako held out before him in practice, but now it was a visceral reality.

Yuuri was still thinking about that, half lost in his own head, as he tried once more to nail the quad salchow. It had eluded him for weeks, despite Yurio and Victor’s best efforts. As he set up for the jump, he was more focused on the music than the technique.

He jumped, rotated, landed.

It was messy. His blades touched down in a spray of ice, but he didn’t stumble. He didn’t under-rotate or catch himself with his hand.

He stopped short, though the routine wasn’t over. “I did it,” he gasped at Victor, wide-eyed.

“You did it!” Victor threw his hands up over his head in triumph and dashed across the rink, nearly bowling him over as he caught Yuuri up in his arms, lifting him off the ice.

Grinning, Yuuri wound his hands around Victor’s neck and leaned down. Their lips met. Victor’s fingers dug into his shoulders as he made a muffled noise of surprise. His mouth was so warm. He tilted his head, and their teeth clicked. Yuuri’s lip twinged, caught painfully between their teeth, and he squeaked in surprise. It was messy and awkward, and nothing like he’d imagined. He tried to pull back, but Victor only clutched him tighter. Yuuri began to squirm, and Victor pulled back with a final chaste brush against his cheek.

Yuuri closed his eyes as Victor set him down, laying his forehead against Victor’s collarbone. That wasn’t how this was supposed to happen. His mouth was wet, and his lips stung from their encounter with Victor’s teeth. This was a mistake. 

“I want to redo this,” he whispered against Victor’s skin, eyes stinging with regret.

The world did not blink. Victor pressed a firm, fond kiss to the top of Yuuri’s head. “I agree,” he said, voice trembling. “We can do much better than that.” And he tilted Yuuri’s chin up to bring their lips together once again. One minute stretched into two and into five and on until Yuuri lost count, wrapped up in the moment and the future stretched out ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [Tumblr](http://louciferish.tumblr.com) and a [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/louciferish)


End file.
